


my womb is filled with blood and tears

by GlitterPoisonedMyBlood



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Domestic Violence, F/M, Female Jon, Female Jon Snow, Fertility Issues, Gen, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Multi, Rule 63, Sibling Incest, death of children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-17 07:43:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16970577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterPoisonedMyBlood/pseuds/GlitterPoisonedMyBlood
Summary: "This is our burden to bear. A Queen is no Queen if she wears no Crown."ORThree Targaryens.Two Queens.One End.





	1. I. Rhaella Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone

Rhaella Targaryen is a dragon princess but she is also a dragon’s slave. Rhaella may be a princess, but she has no control over her fate, has not a say in the future she might have. For she is to marry her brother, Prince Aerys. He is a king-in-waiting, and one day he will rule over the Seven Kingdoms as their father and grandfather have.

It is not that Rhaella does not desire to be wed, nor is it that Rhaella mislikes the idea of marrying her brother. But the idea of wedding _Aerys_ is something she is most displeased by. They are Targaryens, yes, and they do wed brother to sister to keep the blood pure. She accepts this, truly. But Aerys, who had been kind when she had toddled after him in their early years has not been kind for many since then. It is Aerys she objects to, for there is something not _right_.

She sees in him something she cannot name. As they say their vows, anointed in the fragrant holy oils, Rhaella weeps inside because no one asked her how she felt, no one asked if she desired to be wed at two and ten. Her blood has barely come – only a single time. Yet here she is, in the Great Sept of Baelor, signing away her soul.

_Marriage is for life. Aerys is for life._

And as her husband presses into her, without a care for her cries of pain, Rhaella thinks perhaps the Mother has abandoned her. But she will be proud. She will stand tall through the pain. If she falls now, she will never get back up. _This is only the beginning, and it will never end._

“Princesses do not say no to their husbands,” her royal father had said, “You do your duty, and you will be silent. You will agree with what he says and give him what he wants.”

Each night when he comes, Rhaella dies little more inside. _Please give me a child. Please give me something, someone, anything to stop the misery of my life._ She bleeds and she bleeds, and Rhaella is on her knees in front of the cloaked woman with a babe. Three moons pass. But then, Mother hears her prayers and her belly swells and Rhaella thinks to herself – _This is the price I paid._

Aerys seems happy that they will have a child, as far as she knows. He visits her less, entertaining his many paramours instead. Rhaella wonders if she should be angry that her husband has other in their marriage bed, but she cannot bring herself to care – if Aerys is with them then he is not with her.

She gets a glimpse of her future at Summerhall. That look that Aery has in his eyes – _wild, unbidden_ – in the eyes of her grandfather. The one man she believed valued her, _loved her_. He tries to wake the stone dragons and all Rhaella remembers is the _burning_.

She runs, she screams she breathesbreathesbreathes but the flames soar higher, the smoke turns blacker. She stumbles, her balance off from the weight of her belly – her mother - _gods her mothe_ r. She’s tripped over her blood, over her family and the pain – A cramp begins in her stomach and there’s wetness dripping down her thighs. And that’s when she knows – _she knows._

Rhaella crawls down a passageway, unaware of the sweltering heat of the stone. _My son. My baby. My little boy._ And she falls again, and again. Her kin are lying on the ground and _this is folly_. She finally breathes fresh air and she inhales so sharply that she begins to hack a cough, black soot falling from her throat.

She slips into the shallow stream beside the palace and tries to wade to the other side where she sees the maester and townspeople watching as Summerhall turns orange in the flames. She collapses at the shore, whimpering and coughing and a kindly woman pulls her out, using the side of her dress to blot the wetness from Rhaella’s blackened face.

“He is coming,” the master confirms, placing a soothing hand on her open knees, “Fetch me hot water and cleaned rags for the Princess!”

“Please,” Rhaella cries, tears falling from her eyes, “Please-”

The pain is excruciating. Her lungs burn with every heaving breath that she takes but it is nothing compared to the stabbing she feels at her womb. Smoke constricts her soul, the darkness is no longer, not with the bright orange of what had once been the pleasure palace of the Targaryens.

“Breathe, Your Grace!” the maester sooths against the roaring fires that have consumed her family.

“I don’t want to die,” Rhaella moans in a state of delirious pain, “Please. My whole family is dead, there’s no one but me- please don’t take me or him.”

_If the seven have blessed me a child, take my brother. If death must pay for life, take him and give me a child. Please, I beg of you!_ The Stranger listens, though not in the way she would expect.

And she cries and cries and then with one final guttural moan there is a cry. It’s different – not at all like the terrified screams of the knights and smallfolk hoping to quell the raging burn at her side.

She thinks perhaps if she reaches out, she might become the flames, that she is one with the dragon because _fire cannot kill a dragon_ and then perhaps she will be free – and she will take her babe with her. And Aerys can burn, the Seven Kingdoms can burn.

“A son, Your Grace. A Prince for the Seven Kingdoms.”

A Prince. Her Prince. Sweet Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone. He is quiet and somber, and when she holds him, Rhaella thinks she might feel joy. _Is this what it feels like? To be happy?_ She holds him in her arms as the fire grows taller and hotter and Rhaella wonders if they should move, should get out of the way.

But there is Aerys, _alive and well_ and for a moment Rhaella thinks she could step into the fire – _should_ step into the fire. But Rhaegar, sweet boy, cries and Rhaella stumbles back. _If death must pay for life, I have paid the price. I have done my duty._

But Aerys begins to visit her again and Rhaella weeps when she does not quicken. She is indifferent about more children, but if she is swollen, Aerys will see his many paramours instead. Until Aerys begins to take his anger out on her again. “It’s your fault! Our son needs a wife!”

“Mother if you are listening, please send me a daughter, a silver princess for my silver prince.” And the bells ring, because Queen Rhaella is pregnant.

Until she is no longer.

Her child bleeds into their marriage bed before she feels him quicken. Aerys holds her for but a moment, sympathetic but Rhaella does not feel it. She is numb. There is nothing in the fog of her life but blood and pain.

And it seems as though the Mother has no mercy left for her because there is another. Three pregnancies, one child, and suffering her brother-husband’s anger for countless nights. But Rhaegar – sweet Rhaegar; _so quiet and melancholy._

He shows nothing of his father, and everything of her – quiet, unhappy, grey. Rhaella wonders if he has learned her somberness from her, if her son suffers from the same sadness she had remembered her whole life because of her. _Better to be sad than mad_ , she thinks as she holds him close. _Better to be dead than wed._

Aerys rapes her each day for three years but there is no child to prove of it.

“The birth of the Prince of Dragonstone, Your Grace,” the Grand Maester explains, “Her Grace may be barren. It is perhaps time to look at a second wife.”

_I pray for it_ , Rhaella thinks when she hears it, _Let him take another. Let me die with my beloved son. Let his cock fall from him and his soul soon after. Let. Him. Burn._

But then – Shaena. Shaena with no eyes, and wing-like fingers – _And my sweet son_ \- Daeron had lived only half a year and she had thought the sun rose and set on her two beautiful boys. As the funeral pyre burns little Daeron before he could even walk, Rhaella roars her distress, screeching in agony as her own blood is burned and her only living son holds her hand. Aerys does not even attend the funeral.

Aerys does not visit her, cannot look at her because all he sees is three dead children. Her sweet babes, dead before they could even breathe. _She can’t breathe._ The only thing that makes her happy, truly happy, is Rhaegar. Her sweet Summerhall son, her Prince of Dragonstone.

But Aerys takes him away, and the few comforts she has – Lady Joanna and Princess Arianna of Dorne– the only ladies she could think to call friends. In this dragon’s pit of lies, there isn’t a leal soul but Joanna and Princess Arianna.

As she sleeps between two Septas, unsympathetic, harsh, and angry, Rhaella burns from the disgrace. And she shrieks with anger because _she_ has not been unfaithful. _She_ does not have countless paramours in her marriage bed. Her husband gives her his _attentions_ , as Septa Jeyne and Septa Elissa say, and soon her belly swells again. She is diligent – truly, has done all the deeds to have a sister for sweet Silver Prince.

She takes every potion and bitter tasting tincture Grand Maester Pycelle puts in front of her, lays in bed for hours a day so as not to expel the child from her womb, and bathes only in the healing waters brought from the Maidenpool.

But a Queen is not a Queen when she has nothing but prayer, and from her body comes a child – half monster, the courtiers whisper. She does not know if she had a prince or a princess, because the Maester and the midwives do not know. How could they know the sex of the animal from her womb? Not a boy. Not a girl. Only a demon.

With each pregnancy, and each child, and each death, Rhaella’s heart hardens just a bit more. And with each loss, Aerys becomes madder and madder. His violence keeps her unmoving for days. She hides in her bed, and cannot move for every breath kills her.

“A broken rib, Your Grace.” _Broken rib. Broken heart. Broken soul._

And Rhaegar. Sweet Rhaegar, her only love in this world is not hers, but the Kingdom’s. He is the People’s Prince, bright and shining in a way that Rhaella knows is not his nature, has never been his nature. His father hates him more and more, and Rhaella can see it, can taste, _can feel it on her skin_. If she will only be blessed with one child, she will never let him go, never let anyone or anything take him away.

And yet, Rhaella is alone, once again.

When Aegon comes from her womb two turns early, but still healthy, hale, and screaming, Rhaella can only hold her breath. He eats, sleeps, cries, and takes to her breast like no other child before. He is blessed by the High Septon, held by his older brother.

“He is beautiful, mother,” Rhaegar insists, his lanky limbs curled under his little brother, “I will look after him always.”

Just as Rhaella believes the worst has passed, that her belief that impending doom was nothing more than childish superstition, Aegon begins to cough. It’s wet and hearty, and soon there is blood where there was mucus and her little prince is gone.

_Consumption consumption consumption. Kill me kill me kill me._

And she does not even have a shoulder to cry on. Because she’s just realized that Joanna is not leal at all, and even if she were, she is dead now. Tyrion, her son, the dwarf – Rhaella’s nephew if truth is told – has ripped her from the inside out. But Rhaella doesn’t even feel it, can’t even be angry with Aerys for taking her one true friend. Because everything is awful and there is nothing to be happy about anyway. _Why care at all?_

Rhaella could not say what happened between the time that Aegon died and Jaehaerys was born. She remembers it too clearly perhaps, and has instead decided that it has not been her children who have died. It was another Queen – another Rhaella of House Targaryen.

She barely feels it when Jaehaerys dies – so lost in her own black hole of despair that there is nothing but the empty void. How can she feel anything? Her whole life has been pain, and if she lets herself feel – there will be nothing left but the icy shame of her glass womb, in this life of confusion and desperation.

Aerys in his madness does a walk of repent, perhaps finally realizing that _she_ is not the problem but _him_. And yet, as she thinks of the blood and the pain she wonders if she was not meant to have a child at all, if Rhaegar is even real, if he is truly alive or if she has made him up in her grief.

She is fragile. Her mind is broken. Her heart is stone. She thinks she might be dead.

And then there is light in her life again. Viserys Targaryen, a small but healthy prince of her own womb. He is beautiful, and like Rhaegar, Viserys is the sun in her life. As she blinks, he grows, and soon he is walking and talking and Rhaella thinks her prayers to the Mother have finally been heard.

She has two beautiful boys, two little princes. Viserys is warm, not like Rhaegar – Rhaegar who had never been truly happy, Rhaegar, who had crumpled under the weight of the Crown. Rhaegar, who might be the only soul in the world that knew what it was like to live with the monster that was Aerys II Targaryen. Viserys is young. He does not understand. He knows not the wroth his father brings. But Rhaegar – Rhaegar had held her as she bled, had lain in bed when the bruises and scratches were too much to bare. He _knows_ his father. _He knows Aerys Targaryen._

It is for that reason that he is her lifeline – her reason for being. Rhaegar, who is hers and hers alone. Until Rhaegar is wed to Princess Elia Martell of Dorne. She does not want to share him, does not want to give what little she has up to someone who will never love her son as she loves her son. But then Elia near dies to give Rhaegar one head of his dragon and Rhaella remembers the pain of her sexless child, winged and deformed and she thinks perhaps her life would be better if she fell from the highest window of Maegor’s Holdfast, as Helaena did before her.

And Viserys. Viserys is not like Rhaegar, quiet, and thoughtful. Viserys is sweet to her, but he – Viserys is his father’s son. The father who forces himself into her while he stinks of rotting flesh, the charred smell of death clinging to him as he shoves into her erratically while she pretends _This Is Not Me This is Not My Life._

And then everything goes wrong – worse than before. _Is that possible? Could things be any worse?_ They could, the Crone answers, because their Kingdom is in shambles, the King is convinced his son and heir is preparing to overthrow him. And Rhaella can only do so much to influence her husband to stay his hand, not to kill their precious little boy (for his life is worth the life of another).

Rhaegar is putting down a rebellion, the Stark girl is missing – Rhaella scoffs at this, because anyone with eyes would know that the Stark girl is in Dorne, waiting for her prince to return. And each day, Aerys burns another and then takes her flesh.

Elia tries to sneak onto a ship from King’s Landing to Planky Town, but she and the children are caught by the Gold cloaks and Queen and Princess enact their final plan. They spirit Aegon away, young and featureless as he is, towards the mountains of Dorne where Lyanna Stark is hiding, with a message to take the next Crown prince to Sunspear.

Rhaella flees her husband and the war to the safety of Dragonstone, but is denied the right to bring her good-daughter and her granddaughter. And she thinks it’s awful, thinks that Elia might soon know what it is like to lose a child the way she has known. She would not wish it upon any soul, rebel or not.

“This is our burden to bear. A Queen is no Queen when she wears no Crown.”

And then word reaches her that Rhaegar is dead. She loses a son while another grows round in her belly. And she weeps and weeps and weeps until she finds out her brother-husband is dead and all she can do is laugh.

This monster who brought them all pain has taken the one thing that made her happy. Viserys is horrified, confused at his mother’s laughter. But she laughs and laughs and laughs and then cries and cries and cries, bitterly weeping because _this is her lot in life._

She must leave, she knows, but it is too late. She crowns Viserys king and gasps as a babe – a daughter – slips from her belly while the world is in a looking glass.

Rhaella is a Queen but she is also a slave. And this child, this beautiful silver-gold beauty would not bow to men the way that she had bowed to her brother-husband.

Rhaegar had been the Kingdom’s son, and Viserys had been his father’s – but this child. _This child._

“Your name shall be Daenerys,” she whispers, kissing the child’s head of downy hair, “And you will be mine.”

Not the Stranger’s. _Hers. Seven dead for three to live – that is the price I paid._

But now she is the Stranger’s, and her daughter is no one’s.

They are all no one’s.


	2. II. Lyanna Stark, the Dowager Princess.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We are family and they would rather me married to a whoremonger than be happy. I have the wolf’s blood in me and I will not let a man quell it. I am Lyanna Stark, and I bend to no one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you all enjoy part II of this story!

The mood is as grey as the Stark colors at this time each year. Benjen’s birth is both celebrated and lamented. Lyanna Stark loves her brother, her only little brother. She loved her mother too, but she had promised her – _I will take care of him, Mother_.

 

They’re going to a tourney, and Lyanna doesn’t know how she feels. Robert Baratheon – her oaf of a betrothed – is going to be there, and Lyanna has no desire to interact with him at all. He, who had slithered into the wolf’s den, he who had spoken to her Lord father without ever speaking to her. _I hate Robert Baratheon_.

 

Because Robert Baratheon does not _love_ Lyanna Stark. He wants a possession. He wants to own her soul, to snuff out what little radiance she has left. _I have the wolf’s blood_ , Lyanna knows, _and I am wild._ He would seek to tame her, to control her. And no one but Benjen seems to care.

 

Brandon is miserable to marry Catelyn Tully of Riverrun, a more uppity southron lady, Lyanna has never met, and he wishes to _share_ his misery. Brothers are supposed to be protectors. That is what Brandon had promised when Lyarra Stark had bled as Benjen was born. He promised he would protect his siblings, protect them from anything that would do them harm. And here he is, watching in satisfaction as Lyanna curses her betrothal to the Great Whoremonger himself.

 

 _He sees nothing wrong with it,_ Lyanna thinks, _because he is much like Robert himself, only he disgraces high-born women as well!_

 

And as the tourney commences, Ned finds himself smitten with Ashara Dayne. This infuriates Lyanna like nothing else. _Why must he be happy when I cannot? Why might he choose his bride, but I cannot choose my husband? Why are women not able to have their own choices? Am I nothing without a lord father? A lord brother? A lord son? Is a woman only worth what the men in her life deem her to be worth? Is it our fate to be born from a lord, marry a lord, and birth a lord?_

 

And Ned’s romance with Ashara Dayne is almost worse than Brandon because it’s his fault that Lyanna is in this situation at all. She blames him, truly she does. It might be unreasonable, might be unfair to blame her unhappiness on her brother – but she _does_. It _is_ his fault, for he was the one who brokered Lyanna like cattle to Robert in the first place. He is the one who sent a raven to father from the Vale telling of Robert’s interest in wedding the she-wolf of Winterfell. If he had just stayed silent – or only asked _her_ opinion-

 

Lyanna thinks that Ned has betrayed her, that Robert is his brother now, that he has forgotten that _when the snows fall, and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives._ When Brandon worms his way into Ashara Dayne’s bed, Lyanna cannot help but be satisfied at his heartbreak. But it is nothing compared to the pain she will soon be forced to bear, with Robert Baratheon as her husband.

“I do not want to marry him, father. He is unworthy, and I will be unhappy.”

 

“Your happiness is not the priority,” Rickard simmers, “You will not be reckless and ruin the honor of House Stark by destroying this betrothal.”

 

“So, my happiness matters not? You’d saddle me with that-that-that _beast?_ ”

“He loves you,” Ned says even though _no one asked him_ , “He is a good man,” Ned says, all while Lyanna hears stories of Mya Stone, stories of Robert’s love of drinks and whores. _This is the man you would force onto me? This is the man who is good and loves me? Who sires bastards on whores? Who has no honor?_ And the rebel in her rises. She wants to scratch his eyes out for betraying their blood. She wants to kick her father for sending Ned north. She wants to punch Brandon for laughing in her face. A pack is no pack if it only has her and Benjen.

 

Robert boasts about her in the great walls of Harrenhal, yells his infatuation from every corner of the room, follows her like a giant puppy. He shouts his love, hollers it and it is _oppressive_. _Love is not loud. Love is quiet, like the sound of gently falling snow. Love is not meant to be this sweet, love is the taste of bread and salt. Of home._ All the while, a pair of eyes watch her own, study her from afar.

 

“Can you not try to get to know him? He is a good man – and he _loves_ you. You could be happy if only you just tried-”

 

It takes everything in her not to push Ned into the mud for his words. She has done nothing. The blame is all on Robert for his stupidity, his love of women and of wine. _And this is Ned’s fault_.

 

But she bites her tongue and only says, “Love is _sweet,_ dear Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”

 

If this must be the last time she is free, then she will do as she pleases. She will be who she is no matter the consequences, no matter who sees. She comes across Howland Reed and she has an idea. _I will show them. I am not to be trifled with. I may be a woman, aye, but I am not weak. I am more than you could ever be._

 

She rides for revenge in the tourney and when she unseats the idiots and becomes the champion Lyanna realizes she has caught the anger of the King. He is mad, they say, and so she rides off to remove her armor – only Howland and Benjen know of her mischief. _They will keep my secret_. _Benjen is my brother, my true brother_ – Benjen, who had been the only one to speak against her betrothal to Robert, Benjen, who had snuck her swords, and rode with her after dark. _Benjen_. Benjen, who is the only remaining member of her wolf pack.

 

But there is another who finds out about her misadventures – the silver prince himself. He is not angry, shining, and smiling, impressed and proud. He tells her of the strengths of her joust, about how amazed he is of her excellent riding, and he does not think less of her for her sex.

 

“Meet me in the woods tonight,” Lyanna breaths before she can lose her courage and that night she rebels one again. She gives Rhaegar Targaryen her maidenhead under the imposing gloom of Harrenhal, under the trees, under the stars. They make love thrice, and Lyanna has no regrets because this was _her choice_. No one made this decision but her. She is her own woman, and her own protector. Her father cannot sell her maidenhead if she gives it away freely.

 

They part ways in the early hours of the morning and she watches him leave with longing. They will never be this close again, because he is married, and she is betrothed. She cares not what people think, but knows that he will never leave his wife.

 

When he gives her the crown of winter roses, the crowd goes silent until Robert Baratheon begins to shriek in tandem with Brandon. “You silver fucker!” the Stormlord is cursing drunkenly. But across the tilt field, Elia is watching. She does not seem unhappy? She seems… _proud_? And Lyanna wonders if the rumors are true. _Is the princess truly barren? Does she know that I met her husband last night?_

 

Rhaegar meets her again and how daring they must be to make love in her tent with her brother only yards away. She doesn’t care if they get caught. This is her choice, her life, her body. She will decide and _no one else_. And yet their affair is over too soon, and she watches Rhaegar’s eyes as they ride away from the shadow of Harrenhal.

 

Harrenhal was a dream, was everything she wanted. She was free; she was herself. The feel of Winter between her thighs, the exhilaration of her hooves against the trodden dirt, the way those knights fell to the ground from _her_ lance. The way her blood sung when Rhaegar kissed her flower and breasts. Harrenhal was a dream and now she lives within a nightmare with Robert Baratheon.

 

Brandon’s wedding is fast approaching, and that means Lyanna’s is next. She looks through the glass at the wet fields of the riverlands, and wonders what it would be like to be truly free forever, to roam across the tall grass and snow without a bridle, with only the wind in her mane and the gods in her heart. She wonders what it would be like to choose her own fate, her own husband; to choose Rhaegar. _Like Ned chose Ashara_.

 

This is not her future. She won’t accept it, truly, but it is inevitable. Because the world is cruel to little girls. The world cares not for her heart, her head, her soul, only her maidenhead and her womb. To Robert, her father, Brandon, Ned – she is nothing but a way to mighty heirs. She thinks Robert is a fate worse than death, and that is when she decides she won’t marry him. There must be another way – she could cross the wall, flee to Essos –

 

Until she sees a glint in the night, a shimmer and she _knows_ that hair, _knows_ that horse – Rhaegar says only a few words before Lyanna tosses her winter rose necklace from her mother, a change of clothes and a warm cloak into a cloth sack. It takes no convincing at all for her to forsake everything she has known. _If they say I am reckless, then I will be reckless! For once, I will choose my own fate. I will choose ME._

 

She writes a hasty note to Brandon and her father and presses it into the hands of Petyr Baelish, who promises to send the message on. “The King will kill me if he knows, Lord Baelish. I trust you to hand this to my brother, or anyone, please. I leave with the Silver Prince this night.” And then she’s on Winter, her horse, her other half, and following Rhaegar and Ser Arthur out of Riverrun and towards anything but Robert Baratheon.

 

Perhaps she should have thought of her family, perhaps she should have spoken to Brandon in person, perhaps many a thing could have been different. _But they betrayed me. We are family and they would rather me married to a whoremonger than be happy. I have the wolf’s blood in me and I will not let a man quell it. I am Lyanna Stark, and I bend to no one._

 

Rhaegar whispers in her ear as they lay under the stars, Arthur within hearing range but giving them the privacy they both want – both _need_. Sometimes they make love, but Rhaegar is distressed by Lyanna’s insistence to take the bitter brewed tansy root. Lyanna does not want to be like the mother of Mya Stone. She does not want Rhaegar to put a child in her womb and then leave her alone in the mountains.

 

It is not that Lyanna worries about being ruined, that her worth is only as much as her maidenhead and her womb, but that without Rhaegar she has nothing. Benjen, perhaps, would take her in, but he has as little prospects as he, and a desire to live his days childless at the Wall. She has no way to take care of a child, and no home to return to. _Would he leave me? Would I be alone?_

 

They make love yes, but also, they talk. They whisper about their dreams, their hopes, their wants, their desires. Rhaegar is more than she thought, is not just a prince, _the_ prince. He tells her about his son and his smile is radiating, _the Prince who was Promised_ , he says as he tells her about his visions. _The weirwood paste_ , he explains, _helps his dragon dreams grow stronger_. _The dragon must have three heads. There must be one more. There must be a Visenya._

 

She thinks him mad, at first, like his father. This talk of prophecy frightens her, his earnest nature when he speaks of the future, of what he has seen come to pass. But he tells her of what is coming, the Long Night, the creatures that rise from the snow, the bones that walk with no soul to guide them. _Winter is Coming_ , he tells her, _and there must be one more_.

 

And along the shores of the Isle of Faces, Lyanna begins to believe him. _The dragon must have three heads,_ she thinks, _the song of ice and fire_. As he speaks her belief becomes more fervent. Her child may save the world, may bring the Dawn at the end of the Long Night. _This is madness! And yet it is as real as anything I have ever seen._

 

“Marry me,” he seduces and Lyanna never thought she might want to be married, never thought she would be _in love_. But she is. Here. Now.

 

“But – what about Elia?”

 

“Targaryens have taken two wives before. _Please_ – Elia, she knows, she knows, and she respects you, respects us-”

 

 _Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger; I am his and he is mine. From this day, until the end of my days_.

 

They race to Dorne, where Elia tells them there is a hidden tower to keep Lyanna safe. “Take Aegon, please,” Elia had begged in her letter, “King Aerys is holding us here and I would send Rhaenys but I cannot-”

 

They make love late into each night and Rhaegar is mesmerized by her flat belly that holds his seed. _The dragon needs three heads_ and Lyanna begins to fold into herself as her belly begins to grow. Rhaegar is consumed by prophecy, obsessed with the prince who was promised, so sure that this child would be Visenya.

 

But he cannot stay, for war is waiting, and Lyanna holds Aegon to her chest as Rhaegar rides from the Dornish mountains to the riverlands. _I cannot lose another one I love_ , and Lyanna cries every night, aching with the soreness of her heart. Aegon, her sister-wife’s son is the only light in her life. She holds him close as she dreams. She dreams of blood, and pain, and death. And she begins to think that she may not survive this child, that just as her mother died, so shall she.

 

“Lya,” Aegon says as he wraps his arms around her legs and holds tight. He is young, a single year old, and yet so smart – so like his father in everything he does.

 

“You will take care of her,” Lyanna pleads, “And she, _you_. Your sister. Protect her like Benjen protected me.”

 

Her belly is restrictive now, her back aches as she plays with Aegon and the Septas but then she sees something she cannot unsee. Three horses are spotted in the distance, with armor and white cloaks and Lyanna’s heart freezes. She holds Aegon tighter and she thinks he might sense her panic because he is suddenly babbling questions with answers she knows but will not let herself hear. It is her worst fear because Rhaegar has left her with a babe, alone in the mountains, just not in the way she had first thought.

 

Ser Gerold Hightower kneels and presents a crown. Lyanna cries with anguish, collapses on her bed, and howls in her grief as Aegon cries in confusion, and then a pain shoots across her belly and there is blood – _so much blood_.

 

She has only the company of the midwives as her legs become too heavy to stand. They seem at lost with what to do. _I do not know either_ , Lyanna thinks in the brief respite from pain. Her prince, _gone_ , her mother, _gone_ , her father, _gone_ , her brother _gone_. _They’re all gonegonegone._ Lyanna Targaryen is nothing but pain, nothing but loss, and a fever dream.

 

“ _My little Visenya,”_ _Rhaegar says as his hands knead her rippling belly, “My sweet Visenya_.”

 

And suddenly it doesn’t hurt anymore. Nothing hurts. Lyanna thinks that this is no blessing but a curse. If there is no pain, there is no feeling. If there is no feeling, she is already dead. But perhaps this is what the Gods have decided for her, their blood tears weeping from their white faces. If she must die so her child might live, she will pay the price no matter the cost.

 

So, she memorizes her face, this sweet Targaryen princess, so like her father and none like her mother. Those bow-like lips, pink and soft, hair as fine as spun silk, silver-gold like the boy sitting pensively at the end of the bed.

 

“Sister?” he asks as Ned cries into the babe’s wide violet eyes and that seems to make Ned cry even more. _When did he get here?_ Lyanna wonders, thinking perhaps this was her fate. _I could forgive him_ , she thinks, _if for once he chooses_ me _._ She knows that Robert Baratheon has the Starks on his side, and she knows that in her name her husband is dead. Everyone and everything is dead.

 

“I don’t want to die,” Lyanna whispers, but it’s too late. Her vision is dark, and she feels cold, so unlike the warmth she had felt as Rhaegar had lain beside her, all limbs and pearl teeth. _Is that what it felt like when you died, my prince?_

 

Visenya was Rhaegar’s dream. But Lyanna’s dream had died at the Trident, under Robert Baratheon’s war hammer, rubies falling to the river like beads of blood. This child is no Visenya. This child is Lyanna’s dream, or what little is left of it. And so she has a different name, for a different princess. Because Visenya’s story is sad, and Lyarra’s story was sad, and Rhaella’s story is sad, and _Lyanna’s story is sad_. This child did not deserve to be sad; sad not unlike Visenya. She deserves to be _happy_ , to have love, to have companionship-

 

“Her name is Alysanne,” she shudders through bloodless lips, “Take them to Starfell, Ned. To Ashara Dayne. Promise me you will protect her. Promise me, Ned.”

 

And breathing becomes hard and living becomes hard, so she doesn’t anymore.

 

Happiness dies in the Tower of Joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment below!


	3. III. Alysanne, the Old Queen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alysanne wants Aegon, but wants no crown. “Happiness is a boat on a river with you,” she whispers as he kisses down her neck, “But I cannot have a river; only a kingdom, and so I will take the only happiness I can get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the final chapter! This chapter is almost twice as long as the others. Please enjoy Alysanne's chapter! Happy holidays to all who celebrate.

Princess Alysanne Targaryen had killed her mother with her first breath. That’s what Jon Connington tells her whenever he reminds her that she must do her duty to her house by marrying her older brother and producing an heir, a spare, and several sisters to wife. The discussion of Alysanne’s future with Aegon is one of the few things that does not upset her about her life in exile aboard the _Shy Maiden_.

Aegon is perhaps the one thing in her life that gives her true joy. For as long as she remembers, something has been missing, like a field of high green horsegrass without a single flower, like an ocean of chilled winds without ice. Something is wrong. _Is it me? Or is it them?_

Her older brother, who has loved and cherished her since the moment he saw her face, who has held her as she cried, protected her when she was afraid – there is no other man in the world that Alysanne would love better. Aegon, who has always loved her, who will _always_ love her.

And yet her septa says that this is not enough. “They leave us alone with babes. My daughter was stillborn, and instead, I raised you.” Her septa has also said that if she allows a man to touch her before she weds that she will be ruined. Not because she no longer has a maidenhead, but because Septa Lemore has stressed that men often leave women alone in the mountains with a babe. The only time Alysanne questioned this, her septa cried and Alysanne felt so guilty she sent herself to bed without supper.

Though she loves her beloved Septa, Lemore’s words cause her great distress until Aegon makes a promise at the edge of the water, turbulent below and yet calm underneath, “I will never choose the Crown over our family. I will never be what our grandfather was.”

But Aegon’s love is not free – he gives it because he loves her, it is true. But there is another evil, more sinister by far to which she must pay due, and that is the Crown that is between them. Aegon may be the Prince of Dragonstone now, but one day they will return to Westeros and Aegon will take the Iron Throne. Alysanne wants Aegon, but wants no crown. “Happiness is a boat on a river with you,” she whispers as he kisses down her neck, “But I cannot have a river; only a kingdom, and so I will take the only happiness I can get.”

They are married when Alysanne turns five and ten. Alysanne is both terrified and relieved. She wants no part in the throne, has no desire to rule. She is Alysanne, not a princess, not a lady, just Alysanne. And yet, her heart freezes when she thinks of her aunt – sold to a Dothraki Khal and now alone in the world. It could have been her – might have been her if she were only a touch older. _Aegon would not sell me for a crown. Aegon is not Viserys._

As they stand in front of the Septon, the Targaryen loyalists watching impassively, Alysanne thinks she loves Aegon – but there is fear in her heart. Aegon is a man grown, and she a woman flowered. Jon’s lips twist as Aegon places his lips on hers. It is not innocent, not at all, not like the sweet kisses they had shared as children, while they danced under the stars and pretended to be dragons.

Their consummation is not nearly as scary as Alysanne’s ladies have said. There is a slight pinch when his manhood enters her (not nearly as painful as her septa had said), but he gives her pleasure as he does it, and she meets the Seven before Aegon spills into her. _A child_ she hopes, _a sweet prince_. Aegon holds his hand to her belly, stuffing a pillow under her legs to keep his seed in her womb.

It does not take.

Not that turn, or the next, or the one, two, three, beyond.

Aegon says he is unbothered, says that it will happen when they are ready, “We are only young,” he says, “It will happen when the Mother gives us her blessing. For now, we should only do our best.”

Jon Connington does not agree, “The Crown needs an heir, or none will rise for us when we land at Storm’s End.” He speaks dirty words, cursed words, of a second wife, _of barrenness_. Alysanne will be set aside, like she is nothing, like _they_ are nothing. He looks her in the eye when he speaks of it and Alysanne wonders if her father’s friend is thinking of her mother as he says it. Jon has nothing good to say about Lyanna Stark, sees her as a whore, wild, willful, the bane of the Targaryen family. _This is his revenge. For it is easy to replace a wife,_ Alysanne bemoans, _and I will have neither a boat on a river nor Aegon_.

That night she dreams. It is like the dreams she has sometimes had, similar to the dreams that Aegon has once had. It’s vivid, full of color, sensation – she can taste the air. It’s salty, and the air smells of a rotting egg and ash. A woman stands before her, masked in red, tall and proud, “You must not travel this road, Alysanne Targaryen. It will bring you nothing but blood and tears.”

“Who-”

“You will die as you are born. Alone, with no one, with nothing but a Crown.”

Alysanne is horribly confused, terrified by this woman whose face she cannot see, who is predicting her death and ruin. She opens to speak but someone grabs her hand, and she looks down and there is a child, many a child. _Mamamamamama –_ and their faces are melting and _gods_ the pain - There is blood in her smallclothes when she wakes.

 _The Seven have forsaken us,_ Alysanne thinks, _and now I will lose the only one I have left._ Until finally her belly begins to swell and round and Aegon holds her close at night, hand on her belly, vibrating with satisfaction as the child quickens under his fingers. They float down Mother Rhoyne with a gentle rocking that lulls both her and the babe to sleep each nut, with Aegon’s arms around her.

He presents her with all manner of gifts. Myrish lace for gowns, persimmons from Qarth, dates from Volantis, fine lemon cakes from Dornish lemons, amethyst jewels set in Qohori white gold (for they do not buy yellow from Casterly Rock) and a mischievous midnight black kitten Aegon’s own cousin Quentyn had presented on his journey across the Narrow Sea. He gives her affection, “I would not buy your love, Alys,” Aegon says, “But I would buy you that which you enjoy. _You will be a Queen_.” He is happy. Alysanne is happy too. _A babe_ , a son, an heir.

They journey to the shore when her belly becomes so big she can no longer walk safely across the deck of the _Shy Maiden_. They make for Pentos, for the house of Illyrio Mopatis, where a small army of midwives, and a Maester by the name of Marwyn are waiting. The pain is indescribable, a radiating burning in her legs and cramping that shoots down her back that is so excruciating she makes a mess of herself. But after a day of her cries and begging the midwives to bring her Aegon – which they studiously refuse – Alysanne is presented with the babe she carried in her belly down the river.

He is comely and chubby, limbs fat, and cheeks round and his hair is the same silver-gold that both his parents inherited from his grandfather. Their little Prince Jaehaerys, calm and thoughtful, eyes focused on the ever-moving world around him. Aegon worships her and their new babe, _“A child, sweet sister.”_

He takes to the teat as if he has always been there, and yet as he suckles Alysanne cannot help but think of another time, of a shadow, of a dream.

As they sail across the Narrow Sea, ready to claim the throne, her belly swells again. Her ladies say she is Alysanne come again, that she and Aegon will have many healthy children, that the new King and Queen have both love and friendship. _Not like the Usurper,_ they whisper, _King Aegon would never stray from his wife_.

Doran Martell is pleased to see Aegon and seems indifferent towards Alysanne. He holds his grandnephew with his swollen limbs and smiles with affection. Alysanne wonders what it’s like to have a parent, to have someone smile at her the way that Doran smiles at Jaehaerys. The closest she has ever had to a mother is her sweet Septa, who has been ever quiet since their arrival in Dorne. _Aegon looks upon our own child in this way_ , she thinks, _my Aegon._

As soon as they have the support of the crownlanders, they take Dragonstone. The Lion bastard sits the throne at his mother’s breast, they tell the bannerman, should they not want a true king? One who fights his own battles without suckling at his mother’s teat? Aegon is tried, tested, and true, his bannermen say. He has been born and raised for this very day, a King without a crown.

She is left alone with a growing belly on Dragonstone, and that is when she meets Daenerys Stormborn of house Targaryen for the first time. Daenerys and her dragons are so similar to Aegon and yet so different all the same. Daenerys calls herself Queen, and is ready to burn Alysanne where she stands, until Rhaegal bows his head and curls his tail around her legs with a warm affection that Alysanne has only ever experienced from her little black cat. Rhaegal becomes Alysanne’s truest companion, her comfort, her joy, her freedom, just as Silverwing was the first Alysanne’s. 

Daenerys is not at all what Alysanne expected. She thought of her aunt as a fragile beauty, not a desert rose. Daenerys is a true Targaryen Queen, as powerful as Visenya and as beautiful as Rhaenys. Alysanne sends a messenger to Aegon, who is preparing to take King’s Landing, that their aunt has arrived, and is willing to send men on their behalf. Daenerys seems to see Aegon as nothing more than a nuisance, but finds in Alysanne friendship she had never experienced before. 

King’s Landing falls and Alysanne is dreading the coming days at the Red Keep. She has grown to love Dragonstone, to admire the harsh beauty of the dark rock and screeching dragons. Her wish to stay is granted with a sharp cramp in her belly. The babe who comes from her womb is pink and squalling, face scrunched up with silver-gold hair and Aegon’s nose – their father’s nose. _A little princess_ , and the bells ring across Dragonstone, for the new King, just crowned, is a father once again. Alysanne barely remembers the pain, only the jubilation of holding her sweet daughter in her arms. 

“Daenys,” they name her, after the Dreamer, and after her great-aunt, the mother of dragons, who brought magic back into the world.

The realm is at peace (sort of) and there is more to consider. They have an heir but no spare, and Jon Connington blames Alysanne for the fact that the Crown has a single daughter and son. The lord of Griffin’s Roost is quieted quickly, when it becomes apparent that Queen Alysanne’s belly is round again. This time, the bells ring across King’s Landing for a son, _a second heir_ , an Aegon.

All the while, Rhaegal lays eggs, and Alysanne places them into the cribs of her children. Daenerys watches impassively, with a fierceness in her eyes. It is a look that she has never given Aegon, who she cares little for. The two tolerate each other’s presence for Alysanne’s benefit, and Daenerys rarely leaves Dragonstone while Aegon infrequently allows Alysanne to invite their aunt to King’s Landing.

“The Lannisters must pay,” Aegon says as they lay in their marriage bed.

“What Lannisters do you speak of? Cersei is dead. Tommen is at the Wall-”

“Kevan Lannister still lives. Jaime Lannister is up north. Lancel Lannister is with what remains of the faith and the Lannisport Lannisters-”

“The Lannisport Lannisters have done nothing but be lions, Egg.”

Aegon’s eyes sharpen, “And Rhaenys did nothing but be a dragon.”

Alysanne sucks in air. After all these years, Rhaenys is still a point of pain for both of them. For him to use this against her-

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” he whispers, “But all those who hurt our family will see their end. No matter the price to pay.”

_Even if it’s me?_

When Aegon is six turns old, her husband issues a warrant for the arrest of all the Lannisters in the land. “If you are guilty of no crime then you will face no punishment,” he says, “I do not wish war, only justice.” They are only words though, because Kevan Lannister is sent to the Wall, along with all the male Lannisport Lannisters above the age of ten.

“And what of the Freys, Your Grace?” Aegon’s hand points out, “They butchered the Starks and their bannerman under guest right.”

“With help of Tywin, Kevan, and Genna Lannister.”

Alysanne sighs, “Aegon, please-” 

 _He should have listened. He promised me that we would make decisions together_. But Aegon is only a man, a man consumed by rage and when their second son turns two and their new infant daughter Rhaenys is still at the breast, the land is in war once again. Aegon sends her and the children to Dragonstone with Daenerys and she spends the days wondering if she made the right decision.

 _I love him,_ she bemoans to Daenerys.

“Do you?”

 _Yes._  

But Daenerys can feel her hesitation, can smell it in her salted tears, “Even when it will cost you everything?” 

The war is over quick, since no one of note defends the Lannisters. Casterly Rock is sacked, and what little gold is left is seized by the Crown. House Parren, a house with only four members becomes the new warden of the west.

And yet, this war is not bloodless. It comes with a price. This is all Alysanne thinks as she holds Rhaenys in her arms and Daenys’ small hand in her own. She wants to vomit, wants to scream because upon the funeral pyre is their little Aegon, small and sweet, yet poisoned by his own Lannister loyal wet nurse who burns alive with him and his yellow egg. Daenerys stands at her side and Aegon beside them, but she cannot face him.

_One._

_This is your fault. Yours. You!_

It takes time, but this war is forgotten. _No one liked the Lannisters, anyway,_ the smallfolk whisper, _they were cursed by the Seven, cursed, it’s true_.

Then winter arrives, and the aching cold comes with it. The war has drained supplies and Aegon is rushing to send southern provisions to the north. But the north needs more than food; they need men; they need weapons; they need dragons. What follows is unbelievable, though it happened all the same.

The dead come, and it is not Aegon who defeats them but Daenerys. Daenerys who had once been Queen but ruled no lands; Daenerys, who was revered as a mother of her people; Daenerys who was the _Prince who was Promised_. After the war, she is worshipped, loved for the way she brought the Second Dawn. Princess Daenerys of the Dawn, the true savior of Westeros. This enrages Aegon to say the least. The smallfolk don’t care about him at all. They don’t like him or dislike him, they simply don’t care, for they are enchanted of tales of Daenerys’ dragon, Drogon, and her fall from his back as the Others burned.

When he returns, Aegon presents her with a Valyrian steel sword, Dark Sister, and she presents him with a child. “A son,” Aegon says as he holds their babe in his arms. Daenys hops around to see him and Rhaenys is quiet as she watches. “We will name him Daeron, for he will be a prince who does good.”

Daeron is a blessing but he brings with him a curse. For the next child slips from her womb while she rides upon Rhaegal’s back and Aegon does not even notice. It is a crippled thing, no eyes, wings, and clear skin. He does not even breathe before he is dead. And yet his father cannot turn his eyes from Casterly Rock, cannot turn his attention from revenge.

 _It should have been you_ , Alysanne thinks bitterly as their babe is lain to rest – her babe who never lived, _you were to bring peace. You were to bring prosperity. It should have been you on that pyre!_ It is at that moment that Alysanne regrets everything. Aegon is not her fate. Aegon was never meant to be her fate. Their children, yes, they are her future. She loves Aegon, she does, but he is not what she wanted, and not what she needed.

She yearns for peace and quiet, and Aegon the Warmaker is neither of those things. Aegon takes the Stepstones first, and then sets his sights on Essos. Daenerys does not approve of her nephew’s decision to start an unnecessary war, and Alysanne begs him to make their own land prosperous before he makes war without just cause.

“Tyrosh has sheltered Amory Lorch, and they will burn. I will suffer no enemies of our house to live while our sister and our son rot in the grave.”

 _Our son is there because of_ you _,_ Alysane rages. _Our sister is there because of our father._

Years pass, and their distance grows. They have two more sons, Aemon, and Baelon and four more daughters, Alyssa, Daenaera, Vaella, and Rhaella. Aegon takes Tyrosh, yes, but they lose as much as they gain; Aemon and Vaella fall from their dragons on their first and only ride against the enemies of the Targaryen family. Their bodies wash upon the shore, skin milky white from the freezing temperatures of the sea, no blood to be seen, only the ruinous mutilation of the sea. She had begged them not to go, prayed that they would stay safe in their bed and leave the war to others. 

_Two._

_Three._

“You have taken three children from me,” Alysanne whispers into an empty room as she cries, “I have lost three of my children for needless wars.” And yet, Aegon and Alysanne do not speak for near on a year until Daenaera, her sweet but simple daughter begs them to reconcile.

All the while, Alysanne is not just a mother and a sister, but a grandmother who dotes on the toothless smiles of the ones that the Stranger did not take. Jaehaerys, the Prince of Dragonstone, their eldest son at age two and twenty, welcomes his third child by Daenys. But Daenys, like so many of their house, leaves her children without a mother and Alysanne sinks into a deep depression that not even Daenerys can shake her from. All the while, Alysanne remembers a night of blood, of the hands that had grabbed her in her sleep as the woman with the red mask had warned her of what lay ahead.

“What mother should bury her child?” Alysanne sobs as Daenys’ mount, Goldenheart screeches above the funeral fire. _Me too, my child. Me too_.

Daenerys looks her in the eye, “What mother should have no child?”

_Four._

And it seems like Alysanne asks this question again and again. Alyssa, her little adventurer, always riding Vhagar further and further across the Sunset Sea comes back unwhole, unclean. The maesters give them only moments together before Alyssa burns orange, burns, purple, burns red, the way that the sun fades.

Alyssa had been a type of sun. She burned bright, warm and wild. Anyone who came too near seemed to burn. She was the best and worst of the Targaryens. She was wild, untamed, and more than what anyone told her she could be. Alysanne long to be akin to Alyssa, unbroken _and alive_. And yet she was nothing but fire on a slab. Alyssa Targaryen does not last the night for the worms eat her until she is nothing but bones and broken dreams.

_Five._

She is barely past the death of Alyssa when the Stranger comes for the blood of her womb once again. Baelon, who wanted nothing more than to become a maester dies treating smallfolk in the Vale. It is no plague, is no case of the pox. He simply catches a fever, and his cough never seems to fade until one day his lips are blue and his eyes are unseeing. All the while her only rock is Daenerys, her only true friend in the wide world, for Aegon sees nothing but his enemies and his rage.

 _It’s a laugh_ , Alysanne thinks, because she is also blinded by her rage. But it is not the same rage, not the same anger. Where Aegon becomes angrier and angrier, like a dragon roused from a bloodied slumber, Alysanne rides the Westerosi breeze at it heats and cools. She forgives him, for a moment. And then she remembers their ashes, their names carved into the wall of smooth marble across King’s Landing and then it’s more. _Aegon wakes the dragon._

_Six._

Rhaella dies when she is still in the nursery. It is nothing like what happened to Aegon, for Alysanne feeds her children from her own breast, fear grabbing her heart when she thinks of Aegon’s blue face and bleeding ears. It doesn’t hurt the same way that it hurt then, because her heart has hardened. And yet it hurts all the same, if not worse. Because Rhaella was supposed to be everything that her namesake had not been, could not have been. She was supposed to be _free_. _Is anyone truly free?_

“It happens, sometimes, Your Grace,” the maester says to her gently as she stares at the face of quiet calm before her. If she hadn’t known better, she might think that her little princess was fast asleep. And yet her chest does not rise, and her lips are a deep blue, and this is no dream, “A child might pass with no warning at all quite suddenly for no reason at all.”

 _But there is a reason_ , Alysanne thinks, _we are cursed. We should have died in the Doom. We delved too deep, and we did not pay the price and the gods came for what was there’s – what had been promised. We did not pay the price then, and instead, we pay the price now. For who could dare to love a dragon? She tried to warn me,_ Alysanne thinks _, the shadow in my dream._

_Seven._

She is one and forty and of the eleven living children from her womb, only Jaehaerys, Rhaenys, Daeron, and Daenaera survive. _I have buried seven of my children_. But a miracle occurs – twins. Baela and Baelor, her sweet summer children, warm, radiant, and hers alone.

Daenaera never weds, painfully shy and simple as she is, she stays at her mother’s side for many years, far more than considered acceptable. And she is the source of Aegon and Alysanne’s most violent feud.

“She must marry!” he insists, “She does not know her letters and cannot go to the Faith, and she cannot stay here forever. It brings shame upon our house.”

“She is shy and quiet and simple. We cannot force her-”

It turns they do not have to, for Daenaera, so overcome with grief at the thought that her father wished her gone from the Red Keep, that he saw her as a burden – everyone knows how but none speak of it to Queen Alysanne because she will not seem to believe that Daenaera’s fall from the highest tower in Dragonstone was anything but an accident.

 _Eight_ , Alysanne thinks as she watches the fire climb higher, the flames grow brighter, _my sweet Daenaera. Eight._

And she looks her husband in the eye at that moment, as they stand before the Sept, their five children remaining, standing with the families they have made themselves. She speaks it calmly, no hysterics, no tears, only the fact of the pain that will not seem to fade, “I will never forgive you, Aegon. Never.” 

She is fifty when Aegon becomes sick. A fever, the maester says, and he dies within the week. _I have outlived my husband and my children_. She is not sure if she grieves, only that time seems to move faster and faster. Life is a ride on Rhaegal’s back, without the dragon ever stopping. She does not slow down, they do not move further, and yet the sunset seems to come.

She has nothing but the children who she had at her breast, and her only true friend, Daenerys. Daenerys is everything Aegon was not. She is level, even – she exists in another realm of otherworldly strength that Alysanne cannot seem to follow her towards. They hold each other in the night, crying for what was, what is, and what could never be.

Jaehaerys III is everything his father was not. He wants no war, only peace. And Alysanne wonders what her life would be like if Aegon had kept the promise he made – to put his family above the Crown, their needs over his revenge.

So, she warns Rhaenys, who has born her brother two more children after Daenys’ death. She thinks back to what Septa Lemore had once said to her, how she had tried to tell her that there would be pain and ruin. “Men lie, my love. Jaehaerys is no different. There will be promises he will not keep, oaths that he cannot take. You must make the most of what you are given.” It is terribly bleak, terribly grey, and yet Alysanne wonders, if she had known the weight of the Crown upon her head would cause her neck to break, would she have stepped foot in the Seven again?

Alysanne withdraws into herself after Daenerys dies quite suddenly at Dragonstone. She lies in bed for hours a day, thinking about what her life could have been had she chosen the boat upon a river, and not Aegon. _Would her children live? Would Daenerys live?_

She is old now, frail, the Dowager Queen. She rules nothing but the ashes of her children, nothing but the embers that burned them. She thinks the world cannot become greyer than it already is until Daeron is slain in a joust. A joust of all things. Slain. _He fell from his horse,_ Jaehaerys tells her, his hand on her own, _at the exact angle that –  I’m sorry, mother, but he is dead._ If everything did not hurt so much, she thinks she might have laughed, might have been in histrionics by how her fate has come for her. 

 _Nine._  

She does not even blink when his ashes are interred in the marble stone of the Great Sept. She knows not how much time passes when Jaehaerys passes too. Was it a day? A year? An eternity? She does not know because it all seems to blend. Every day is the same as the one before and the only difference now is that the bells ring to signal that perhaps her dream was no dream but a vision – or a message. _Of the future. Of what was to come. Of what is here._

 _The King is dead_. His eldest son, Aegon, a man grown becomes king, and Alysanne is more than just a Dowager Queen. She is the Dowager Queen grandmother, the last relic from Aegon’s Second Conquest. And yet, inside, she is a fraud. What mother is a mother when there is no child to hold? No hand to grasp? Not a child to love?

_Ten._

She thinks it cannot get worse because how could it? Ten children. Dead.

But she thinks this too soon. Because Rhaenys becomes sick, a slow ache in her bones that never seems to fade, no matter how warm she is kept. She coughs, at first. It’s a hearty cough, full and chesty. And then slowly but surely it becomes weaker and weaker until it was a dry cough, boney and shallow. Her hair fades and her lips tighten. Her skin shrivels and when she breathes, her lungs crackle. Her bones creak and her back stoops and soon she goes gently into the night in the comfort of Summerhall. Alysanne is not sure she remembers what happened then. It’s a dream, almost, watching her daughter burn as her grandchildren cry in sorrow.

 _Eleven_. 

Baela and Baelor wed and Alysanne begins to feel the exhaustion sag in her skin. She feels thin, weak – like a shallow layer of snow spread across too much grass. She is tired, so very, very tired and sleep is nothing but a void of black. There is not a reason in the world to do anything. She can only sit and watch as the world moves and leaves her behind.

But she has her children. Her only two children left, and the ones who are everything she and Aegon could have been. She clings to the hope that all those many years ago, her vision was wrong; that she would not leave the world as she came in – alone. Baela and Baelor are her last hope, her last chance. They are happy, sailing around the world, seeing new places, _simply living_ _for the sake of living._ She begs them to stay home, to stay on Dragonstone with her, not to take unnecessary risks, or interact with the sick or joust in a tilt or – And yet one day, when they finally agree to come home to satisfy the ill ease in her mind, their ship crashes on a trip across the Narrow sea- 

_Twelve._

_Thirteen._

_I have outlived all my children._

“Great-grandmama? Was the conquest as glorious as they say? Uncle Viserys said that great-grandpapa Aegon was fire and blood made flesh,” asks the smallest one, little Elaena Targaryen, daughter of King Aegon VII and his half-sister-wife, Aella. _Oh, how history changes. How the smallfolk had cursed Aegon’s war, how they had disdained his revenge-driven ways – and now he is glorious._ He is Aegon the Warmaker no more, but Aegon, the Conqueror Come Again.

It becomes hard to breathe, hard to speak, hard to live. And so, she looks them in the eye and with the final strength she has, she imparts wisdom upon her kin that no one gave to her, but that she wishes she had the day she left the _Shy Maiden_ behind. Someone must tell this sweet summer child something that no one told her, and thus Alysanne, the Queen, the Old Queen imparts her last piece of wisdom with her final breath, an unhappy darkness across her face, “Aegon was made of fire and blood, my child. Perhaps that is true. But I was naught but blood and tears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining this wild ride with me! I have considered writing a companion chapter to this story, so stay subscribed! Thanks for all the comments and support. Please let me know what you thought of Alysanne's chapter in the comments.


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